Hogan Lovells advises infas Holding AG on the public takeover offer by Ipsos

Press releases | 27 January 2025

Under the joint leadership of Frankfurt partner Prof Dr Michael Schlitt and Munich counsel Dr Sebastian Biller, global law firm Hogan Lovells has advised infas Holding AG ("infas"), listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange (General Standard), in relation to the voluntary public takeover offer published on 7 October 2024 by Ipsos DACH Holding AG, a wholly-owned indirect subsidiary of Ipsos S.A., Paris (together "Ipsos").

With the public takeover offer, Ipsos made an offer to all shareholders of infas to acquire their infas shares against payment of a cash consideration of EUR 6.80 per infas share. This corresponded to a premium of around 61% on the closing price of the infas share on 22 August 2024, the last trading day prior to the publication of Ipsos' decision to make the takeover offer. The transaction volume totalled around EUR 60 million.

The public takeover offer was accepted for around 83.72% of infas shares by the end of the additional acceptance period on 21 November 2024. After the German Federal Cartel Office (Bundeskartellamt) granted merger control clearance for the completion of the public takeover offer on 20 December 2024, the public takeover offer was finally completed at the beginning of January 2025.

infas Holding AG with its 5 subsidiaries is active in the market, opinion and social research sector. The group's largest subsidiary, infas Institut für angewandte Sozialwissenschaft GmbH, founded in 1959, is an independent research company that provides research and consultancy services for science, politics including its administrations, companies from all sectors and the EU. The Group is managed by the management board members Christoph Preuß (CEO), Dr Isabell Nehmeyer-Srocke (CFO) and Thomas Allerstorfer (management board member and future CFO).

Hogan Lovells team for infas

Prof. Dr Michael Schlitt (Partner, Stock Corporation and Capital Markets, Co-Lead), Dr Tim Brandi (Partner, Corporate M&A), Dr Susanne Ries (Of Counsel, Stock Corporation and Capital Markets), Dr Mike Karl Schmidt, Simon Kiefer (Senior Associates, Corporate M&A) (all Frankfurt);

Dr Sebastian Biller (Counsel, Co-lead), Dr Matthias Veicht (Associate, both Stock Corporation and Capital Markets, Munich);

Dr Martin Sura (Partner), Giulia Matt (Senior Associate) (Antitrust, Dusseldorf).